An Arachnid in Gotham
by blckndwht44
Summary: "I can't give up. I can't let this city burn. It's what he would have wanted. Even if I had to fight him to protect this city, I would do it. It's what he would have asked me to do. And that's why I need to do this. I need to stop him. I can't let him do this. I won't… I won't let Batman destroy Gotham City." —Spider-Man, Prologue
1. Secrets

**Spiders and Bats: An Arachnid in Gotham**

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**Disclaimer: **Do people still do this? Eh. Better safe than sorry. So, uh, I don't own the characters depicted in the story nor do I claim to. Marvel Comics and DC do, though.

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_Gotham City._

_The cesspool that thinks it's a town. The sewer beneath the world._

_I've always wondered why people—especially good, honest people—choose to live here in this God-forsaken city as opposed to anywhere else in the world. Literally anywhere else would be a better choice than here._

_Even New Jersey. And God, I hate Jersey. The entire state of New Jersey. Can you imagine me stepping foot in Jersey?_

_But seriously, anywhere else in the world would be preferable to Gotham. If the only inhabitable places left on Earth were Gotham and Antarctica, I'd choose Antarctica. And even if Antarctica _weren't _habitable, I'd choose it over Gotham any day of the week._

_Believe me when I say that. I'd rather freeze in Antarctica than live in a city where psychopaths and murderers freely roam the streets as soon as the sun sets, while the police and the government are either too powerless or too corrupt to do anything about it._

_I know what you're going to say._ _"But Spidey, you live in New York!"_

_Yeah, I live in New York, where Thor goes toe-to-toe with Skurge the Executioner at Central Park every other Tuesday, while the Mole Man brings out some subterranean monster to wreck Madison Square Garden at least once a month. You're thinking that I should know that New York itself is no different from Gotham City. That they're just the same. Hell, you might even say New York is even worst._

_So now you're going to say, "So, why is it you're making a fuss about Gotham?"_

_Because they're _not_ the same. They're so very not._

_Let's look at the facts._

_There are about a dozen or so supervillains in New York for every villain in Gotham. Fact. New York City has been leveled at least ten times ever since I've been born. Fact. It has been the stage for at least three alien invasions as far back as I can remember, and those are only the significant ones. Fact. Living in New York means that you've resigned yourself to the possibility of looking out your apartment window and seeing Sentinels marching in the streets in front of your building every other week. Fact._

_Despite all of this and more, New York City is nowhere near the level Gotham's in when it comes to being the worst place on Earth. Gotham is in a whole league of its own._

_Because the thing about Gotham is that… it's a city without hope._

_You wake up in New York on a bright, sunny day, walk down Wall Street for your morning stroll for some reason, and you're liable to find yourself witnessing a robbery by the Wrecking Crew. You start to panic, you start to fear for your own life, you get trampled on by the sudden rush of people trying to get away from the bad guys… then all of a sudden you look up and see Captain America standing right in front of you, pulling you up while in his other hand he's holding his shield high._

_Suddenly you don't feel scared anymore. Suddenly you feel _safe._ Then the cops come rushing in onto the scene—setting up barricades, assisting victims, doing what New York's finest is supposed to do. Every other superhero in the vicinity then joins Cap, and then you suddenly find yourself getting interviewed by the local news for being in the middle of the last, big superhero brawl._

_And what you'll probably have is a big, goofy smile on your face as you tell them how awesome the whole thing was without a hint of irony. No matter how bad things get, people can live their lives in New York—they can go to school, raise families, have jobs, grow old, and in the end they can die living fulfilled lives. The police do their jobs, the government cares about the people (more or less), and the heroes are looked up to and respected._

_I'm not saying everything is all peachy, it's just that… compare that to Gotham._

_The cops are crooked. You can count all the honest cops on one or two hands, and maybe half of those are just rookies who don't get the 'gist' of being a Gotham City cop yet. Once they do, they'll probably turn rotten themselves. And if they don't, it'll probably only be a matter of time before they're either killed by the mob or their colleagues. City hall is no different. Everyone there gets paid by the mob, and if they're not—oh, who am I kidding? Everyone there gets their paycheck from the mob, no exceptions. At least, that's what I saw._

_And the heroes? For the longest time, the people of the city didn't even _believe_ he existed. For the longest time they were as afraid of him as the cowardly, superstitious lot of criminals were. And when they did realize he was real, what did they think? They didn't trust him. Even most of the very few honest cops in the city didn't trust him. For the longest time he was a vigilante feared and distrusted by the public, and hounded by the police. Sounds like someone I know, if you think about it._

_Still, what I'm saying is: how can someone like that inspire hope in people?_

_And where am I going with this? All I'm trying to say is that despite everything he and his family has done, this city is still a city without hope. Sure, the citizens trust him now. Sure, the cops work with him now. But in the end nothing's changed._

_Gotham is still plagued by the psychopaths, murderers, and nutjobs in its midst. It still has the highest death toll in the country. The local mental facility that should serve as a place of healing and care is treated as a prison where anyone who comes in comes out significantly worse than before. Plus, it and the local prison are two of the most easily escaped from holding facilities in the world._

_In the end Gotham hasn't changed. It's still inflicted with a disease as old as civilization itself, one which has no cure._

_No cure except a complete reset. Destruction then reconstruction from the bottom up._

_Don't get me wrong. I would never dream for that to happen. But it's something to think about. Why can't everyone just leave Gotham, and leave it to rot in its own filth? Why can't they just let it die, then rebuild it? Why do they commit to it—to a life where one wrong turn can mean a slit throat at the hands of some psychotic clown, or a spore-induced hypnotic life of slavery under some crazy plant lady?_

_Because of this reason, I can never understand him._

_He'll gladly die for it, this city. For a city so corrupt… for a city standing at the edge of oblivion, mere moments from falling, he'll gladly give his life. For a city that doesn't warrant protection, preservation, he'll risk his life night after night, trying to eradicate the criminal disease that plagues it—something so deeply ingrained in its roots that it _can't_ be weeded out. For a city without hope, without one sliver of chance at seeing a better tomorrow, he'll die without regret._

Everything burned around him. The arachnid struggle to stand as everything was engulfed by the flames. He clutched his arm as blood flowed from the gaping wound cut across it.

_He'd die before Gotham becomes ashes. He made me understand that, and for that reason alone I need to do this. I need to. It's what he would have wanted._

He scurries across the rooftop, as the monster flapped its wings, stalking him.

_Can't think… body's going numb… but I can't give up now. I need to…_

The spider stopped as he reached the edge. In front of him lied the city, set ablaze. He looked behind him and saw the winged monster launch itself through the air, its fangs bared towards him. As it neared him, it didn't notice the trap the spider had sprung up. In its haste it found itself tangled up on a web, and as it struggled to set itself free, the weblines tightened their grip around its wings and its legs, entangling itself more onto the web.

_I can't give up. I can't let this city burn. It's what he would have wanted. Even if I had to fight him to protect this city, I would do it. It's what he would have asked me to do._

The spider moved towards it and bared its fangs, dripping with venom as black as blackest night.

_And that's why I need to do this. I need to stop him. I can't let him do this. I won't…_

The spider clamped his jaw around the bat's neck, piercing its hide with his fangs.

…_I won't let Batman destroy Gotham City._

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**Chapter One: Secrets**

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**Summers in Gotham were some of the hottest in the country. Which is fitting considering Gotham could very likely hold the title of hell on Earth, if such titles were awarded to the most hellish cities on the planet. Rainy seasons weren't any better, as it never just rains in Gotham. No, rains would be understating the Biblical storms that happen there every few months. In older times, hurricanes have even been documented to come to Gotham and Gotham alone, and somehow they quite promptly disappear once they leave the city border.**

No one knows how or why it's like that, or even _if_ those kinds of events are true and/or scientifically possible. Some people, the more superstitious denizens of this fair town, think the city was built on cursed land. And those kinds of weather, reminiscent of some mad god exacting punishment, was exactly that—punishment for a cursed people on cursed land.

I wouldn't blame them for thinking that. When it comes to Gotham, the sanity of explanations tend to go the way of batteries in a box of Hot Wheels racecars—not included.

Wait, do Hot Wheels cars need batteries?

I've never exactly owned one so… uh…

…Anyway, climatologists have always been baffled by these meteorological phenomena, and academics and scholars in the field have called Gotham City a goldmine for the study of freak meteorological conditions. None of them have ever been able to follow up on this discovery, however, as no man in their right mind would ever step foot in Gotham City without reasons better than 'for the pursuit of scientific inquiry'.

The only way they'd probably do it is if they didn't value their life. Which I consider those scientists do.

It's a shame, though. Since if they're _that_ fascinated with a little heat and a little drizzle, they'd _love_ the winters there. The winters that kept the Third Reich from reaching Russia in the Second World War have nothing against the winters that come to Gotham every year—and yes, I've been studying up on my history, thank you for asking. Gotham University has been studying Gotham's winters ever since the academy was founded, but to this day, no one can explain why Gotham's winters are so much harsher and more devastating than anywhere else on the east coast. Or anywhere else in the country for that matter.

Hell, anywhere else in the world, really. That includes you, Antarctica.

I met him during winter of last year—one of the coldest winters in recorded human history. To tell the truth, I never would have realized then that that day would be the beginning of the rest of my life.

Cheesy, I know, but that's how I feel about it. About him. About everything that happened afterwards.

And it was such a routine assignment.

When I came to the steel mill, I was expecting a night of stakeouts and punching people who deserve it really hard. You know, routine Batpeople stuff. I expected wrong.

When I got there, I found nine people hanging from the rafters of the maintenance room. They were all unconscious, except for one guy who saw me come in from one of the ventilation shafts and promptly passed out, probably expecting whoever did this to them to come back.

I went out the door and began walking through the hallway, coming up to the next unconscious thug or so and finding out to my relief that he was indeed just unconscious and not dead. Because, you know, we have the whole 'not killing' thing going on.

When I came to the assembly line, I slowly opened the door, and found something I wasn't sure what to make of at the time.

On one of the platforms, something—some_one—_in a black outfit was waltzing through the room, dodging gunfire at pointblank range and beating up everyone inside. He never moved like any human being I know—_if he was even human, _I thought to myself then. He leaped around the place, moving too fast for any of the thugs that charged at him to even _touch_ him.

It was when the clown came out that I grappled up to the rafters and began to watch. I was taught to sometimes just watch how things played out before I determined my next move. Charging straight ahead into the fray _blah, blah, blah _get me killed _yadda, yadda _that kind of stuff, you know?

As if I was some new kid who had to be taught that.

"I came out here expecting the Bat to make a courtesy call," spoke the clown, as he brandished a large, serrated combat knife. It was probably a foot or so long. "Instead I find some guy I've never seen before trouncing my crew like they were some drunk, newborn babies. In fact, those moves seem _kind_ of familiar. Is that you, Nightwing? I'm thinking you spilled coffee on your nice, clean suit, and your old disco outfit was too embarrassing to wear again, so now you just took some leftover rags and drew a… huh, that's not a bird now, is it? And it looks nothing like a bat."

"Sheesh. I thought you'd never shut up," spoke the man in black. "This is probably what my enemies feel like when I don't stop talking."

"Huh, so you aren't Nightwing," replied the clown, as he juggled the knife in one hand. "Then what's that supposed to be? A crab?"

The man's bug-eyes opened wide in surprise. "You and I have very different ideas about what crabs look like. This is obviously a—"

The clown sliced forward, as the man in black nonchalantly dodges to the left.

"You're pretty quick," remarked the clown, and he stabs to his side. "You might even be faster than Nightwing."

The man wasn't there anymore, having leaped back. The clown then lunges forwards like a snake striking at a mouse in a field—

Or something, I don't know, is that too much? Too wordy? Alright, then let's just leave it at 'snake striking at a mouse'. That's better.

—snake striking at a mouse when the man in black catches his arm, and gives him a jab straight to the gut. The clown doubles back, and is then hit by an uppercut straight to the chin. A right hook to the jaw then knocks him down flat on his back, and he clutches his stomach in pain.

"You're… you're good," said the clown, laughing weakly. "But… but soft. Any one of the Bat's little family… would have broken my arm… when they catch it like that—except that new Batgirl, she seems… pretty squeamish. But hell, I can… tell that you were… you were even holding _back,_ weren't you? HAHAHAHA!"

For the record, I'm not squeamish. I just really hate the sound of bones cracking.

"If I didn't, I would have drilled a hole in your stomach or made your head explode, and honestly, I hate it when that happens," said the man.

"Heh," chuckled the clown. "You're joking about… killing people when you've never done it before! HAHAHAHA! Oh, I can tell that, too. Jokes… are my tools of the trade. You joke about killing… but it's so obvious you… have goody two-shoes morals like he does. You're like… like the Bat in that regard, I guess. The whole 'not killing' thing. You're both… goody little two-shoes do-gooders in funny outfits—he has a… bat on his costume and you've got a… a…"

The man sighed. "Like I was trying to say, it's a—"

With unmatched agility, he leaped up and over the clown as an oversized hammer came down on where he would have been standing had he not moved. The hammer smashed down onto the floor with enough force to dent it.

The man in black looked back behind him, and saw a pretty blonde—who in my opinion is not as pretty as he makes her out to be—in white make-up and a domino mask wearing a skintight red and black outfit. She lifted up the oversized mallet she was carrying and rested it like a baseball bat on her shoulder.

"Harley, you idiot!" cried the clown, as he continued to lie on the floor. "You _missed."_

"Sorry, Mistah J," apologized the woman, as she ran towards the man in black. "I won't miss this time."

She swung the hammer down at him as fast as she could, but the man was too quick for her to hit. As she looked up, she found two, large bug eyes staring at her.

"Hey, Harley, right?" asked the man in black as he crouched on top of the platform railings. "You're actually pretty cute for a psychotic, anybody ever tell you that?"

She's not _that _cute. Really.

Not… not that I care, of course. I'm not jealous or anything. I didn't even know him during that time. I'm just pointing out the obvious, for your convenience.

"And you're pretty talky for minced _meat, _anybody ever tell you _that?"_ snapped back the woman, as she swung her mallet sideward over the railings. To her surprise, the man wasn't even there anymore.

"You kind of remind me of one my old girlfriends, only, you know, you're less mentally stable," remarked the man, as he moved from side to side, effortlessly dodging the giant mallet as it came down in barrage of attacks.

"And you," moaned the woman, as the repeated swings began to wear her down, "you… remind me of… of minced meat."

"You already said that," spoke the man in black. He caught the hammer as it swung down from mid-air.

"Aw, crap," cried Harley, as she tried to pull her hammer back, to no avail. "I… I'm no good with… ha, making jokes on the fly. Well… at least not when I'm, ha… tired like this. Ha… this is actually pretty heavy."

"Let me help you with that," spoke the man in black, as he crushed the mallet in one hand. It splintered and cracked just before exploding into sawdust.

"Aw, crap. And that was… ha, my favorite mallet, too," cried Harley, as she saw her mallet burst in front of her. She collapsed to the floor from exhaustion. "Aw, man… ha, I need to work out more."

"Huh," spoke the man in black. "You know, now that I've gotten a better look at you, you've actually got a nice figure. Maybe you just need to work on your stamina more."

Flustered, Harley immediately put her arms over her chest and crossed her legs.

"Where do you think you're looking, creep?" she cried.

"What?" cried the man in black, shaking his head. "No! That's not what I… I mean, that's not how I meant it. I just figured… you know, that, uh… dammit."

In the space of seconds, he went from witty to witless. It was cute in an incredibly dorky way.

Behind him, the clown had managed to get back up on his feet. He pulled out a comically, large gun from his inside his suit, and trained it on the man in black, and, well—this is where I came in.

I jumped down from the rafters and, after gaining momentum, stomped on the Joker just as he was getting ready to pull the trigger, knocking him out cold. The man in black turned around, and I'd like to think he appreciated getting saved by yours truly.

Before one of us could speak, however, Harley took to her heels and began running. Nearing the door, the man in black shot a webline at her feet, knocking her down.

He pulled her back towards us, and in an instant, Harley found her entire body covered by the man in black's thick, heavy spraying of white, sticky webbing and oh my God, there was no way I could have described that in a less sexually suggestive way. That joke was so easy and obvious, I couldn't pass up the chance. It'll be like the biggest missed opportunity of my career.

"You better not get your goop in my hair, you—" she began, before her mouth was webbed shut.

"Relax, I wouldn't want that happening to anyone," he reassured her. "These things dissolve in an hour or so, but man, if they get on your hair you'd have to shave yourself bald. I mean it."

He then webbed the Joker, before approaching me as I searched the clown.

"Thanks for the save there," he told me. "Though I could have dodged the bullet had he tried to shoot me. It's kind of my thing."

"You're… welcome, though," I said, awkwardly. "Right?"

"Oh, yeah. Yes, of course," he doubled back. "I appreciate it, of course. You're… uh, you're Batgirl, right?"

"That's me," I told him, proudly. I've only been Batgirl for two weeks as of then, but it's nice when people recognize me.

Well, 'recognize' was the word of the day then.

"Strange," he remarked, cupping his chin. "I feel like I've met you before… it's like… oh my God."

He wrapped one arm around my waist without warning—very snugly, too, and you can imagine the nerve of that guy—and then shot webline at one of the upper windows. Like what my grapple gun does, he pulled us up towards it, and we found ourselves outside on the snowy rooftop of the Sionis Steel Mill.

He sort of paced around, worriedly, before I managed to ask him what was wrong.

"I… know who you are," he said, unsure if he should have said so.

"Y-you do?" I stuttered. I spent more than a year as Spoiler and no one found me out, but only two weeks as Batgirl and someone had already figured out my secret identity?

"I do," he said. "At least, I think I do."

I took a deep breath. "Alright," I said then. "You think you know who I am. And maybe you do. But… it doesn't look like that that's the reason you're walking around looking troubled, so… what is it? What's the problem?"

"Look," he said, as he grabbed me by the shoulders. It was kind of scary, with the way those two, inhuman-looking bug-eyes on his mask stared at me. "I came to Gotham looking for help. I trounced Joker's gang because I thought it was the best way to get your attention."

"My attention?" I asked. I felt myself blushing and I didn't know why.

"Well, not your attention, specifically."

"Oh." What a tease.

"I meant _your _attention, as in your family," he explained. "The bats and birds of Gotham. I needed Batman's help."

"Oh, well, that's not a problem," I told him. "Batman helps everybody. We're superheroes, it's what we do. I don't see what the problem is."

He let go of me and shook his head.

"We're superheroes, right?" he continued. "And we have secret identities."

"Yeah," I said. "And you think you know mine."

He shrugged. "I don't think that I just _think_ I do, anymore. I definitely know who you are now."

"How can you be so su—?"

"Your voice, your hair, your eyes," he answered. "I remember because we met before. We met this morning."

That's when it hit me. Even though all I can discern from him is his voice, it definitely sounded familiar. I definitely recognized him, too: his stance, the way he walked, the way he hung his head—he looked a little more confident then than when I first met him, but it was definitely _him._

"If we had met anywhere else, I think I still would have recognized who you are," he continued. "But because we met _there, _I know not just who _you _are now, but I know who _they_ are now. I know _every one _of you. All because the two of us met at that place."

The snow started to fall then, faintly, around the two of us. My breathing grew labored. My cheeks felt hot, and I could feel my heart beating faster. I could feel a sudden rush happening, some sort of sudden ecstasy and excitement, but I didn't understand why then.

"You're... Stephanie," he said. "Stephanie Brown."

My chest tightened. I felt naked when I took off my mask and told him he was right. The snow was falling around us but I felt hot then.

"You know who I am now, too," he said, "don't you?"

I nodded. "You're Peter," I said under my breath. "Peter... Parker. _Spider-Man."_

He took off his mask. He ruffled his hair, and stared at me with these large, hazel eyes.

I felt myself getting hotter then, as the cold weather around us tried to get under my skin. I felt my cheeks flush... I felt excitement and fear at the same time, and I didn't understand why.

"Alright, we're both naked now."

"What?"

"I mean, you know," I stuttered, "we both know each other's secret identity. We're _metaphorically _naked. Like the masks are what hides the secret, private-type things underneath. I didn't mean that _literally,_ and that was in no way a Freudian slip, just so you know."

"Right," he said agreeably, and I'm pretty sure only because he felt more awkward than I did. "Of course, you don't."

"Let's just… let's just forget that now," I told him. "So you know who I am now. What makes you think you know the rest of the Batmen, Batgals and Bird-boys?"

"Because of the place where we met," he said, as he crossed his arms. "Had we met anywhere else at that time, I might have found out who you are when we saw each other again here, but not who _they_ were. But that wasn't the case, so now I know who _every one_ of you are. And that's a problem."

"Why is that?"

"Because one of the men I'm after," he said, "the reason I came to Gotham to ask for help, is the man I would have asked help _from."_

I suddenly realized. "You don't mean…"

"The man I'm after is _Bruce Wayne,"_ he said finally. "And as it turns out… _Batman."_

**End of Chapter 1**


	2. Trust

**Spiders and Bats: An Arachnid in Gotham**

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**He just sat there, typing away at the Batcomputer. He kept pretending that he didn't notice us come inside the cave, for no other plausible reason than the fact that he probably _smelled _the scent of failure on me, and that he didn't want to deal with it at the moment.**

I didn't want to either. You'd better have yourself checked for brain damage if you want to come face-to-face with _Batman_to tell him the news of how you royally screwed up, because the only thing scarier than Batman—and seriously, dude was once chosen by a _Yellow Lantern_ ring, which searches for the scariest guy alive in a whole _sector_ of _space, _to_ use _it—is an _angry _Batman.

He probably won't beat me up to a pulp like he does criminals, though. Hopefully. Because, like I said, I _royally _screwed up. I screwed up more than anyone's ever screwed up before in the history of forever. Future heroes will tell their children of this day as a cautionary tale on how _not _to be a superhero in all the days to come.

Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating. And also, I'm actually quite certain that he will definitely _not_ beat me up. Probably.

What he'll most likely do is scold me more than my mom and criminal father have ever scolded me combined times ten, and then make me write 'Stephanie screwed up her last screw-up' on the Batcomputer a hundred thousand times before I hand in my Bat-badge and take my Bat-exit.

And that'll be the last anyone will ever hear of 'The Amazing Screw-up Steph and Her Spectacularly Bad Track Record at Being a Superhero'.

Oh God, these are the times I hate my life.

We took a few steps forward. I took off my cowl and cleared my throat.

"Why is he in the cave?" he asked, in the gravelly voice only guys like him and, I don't know, maybe James Spader can do. Liam Neeson, too.

I cleared my throat again as I prepared my argument, but as I tried to speak the words wouldn't come out. I was very much ready to wet myself then and there. Dude regularly takes on guys Superman himself goes toe-to-toe with, and he almost always fights them on as equal a footing as Big Blue fights them on.

"It's a funny story, actually," I half-whispered, scared to death. I took a deep breath and, expecting the inevitable to come afterwards without any chance of reprieve, decided to get it over with, saying what needs to be said. "He… uh, _knows."_

* * *

**Chapter Two: Trust**

* * *

**He stopped tapping away at his keyboard and just sat there, silently, while I feared for my life. We don't kill, sure, and I'm very much **_**certain **_**that there was no way he'd ever break his oath just to kill me for screwing up—besides the fact that, you know, this issue just might **_**not **_**be worth killing someone over, secret identities be damned—but I feared for my life regardless.**

Because being _Batgirl_ is my life now, and it's something I've always wanted. Never in my wildest dreams have I ever thought that this is something I'd be doing someday, and losing my life as Batgirl—just two weeks into it, even—would be tantamount to losing my _actual _life.

I know. Melodramatic, huh? Well, they don't call me 'Sentimental Stephanie' for no reason. At least, _I _don't call myself that for no reason. Because, like, I'm the only one who calls myself that.

Forget I said anything. And besides, that's how I really feel about my newfound life of being Batgirl. There was no way that would ever change.

A moment later, Batman's chair swiveled and he walked towards us—towards him—and stood just a few feet away. I stepped to the side as I realized he wasn't going to confront me. At least, not during that moment. That moment, Batman wanted to confront _him._

Then in a low voice, Batman asked, "How?"

"To be honest, I'm not too sure," he answered calmly, and I admired him for it. Staring down a man almost half a foot taller than he was and almost twice his size, he continued to have this nonchalant air about him, as if he wasn't worried about who he was facing.

Then again, he didn't know Batman like _I_ did and compared to him, Batman was almost a foot taller than I was and was more than twice my size. But I guess, most of all, the fact that he was my _boss_ might have factored into my fear of him more than anything else.

"I mean," he continued, "it's not like I was actively trying to find out. I came here looking for help. You might have realized that then—when I came into your office with Tony Stark, if you had known it was me who came in there, you might have realized it then. I wasn't trying to find out who you were. I just wanted help, and I found out by accident. So whatever you do, don;t blame Stephanie. It wasn't her fault. It was mine."

For the record, take note of that part. I started falling for him there. Though I didn't realize it until later.

Batman's eyes widened, and for the first time in my life I was able to see what he was like when he's caught off-guard.

"You're… that kid," he spoke.

Spider-Man dropped his backpack, and took off his mask. His eyes blinked repeatedly, as if they were trying to adjust to the inherent darkness of the cave.

"Peter Benjamin Parker," he mumbled, then cleared his throat. "Part-time photographer, part-time science teacher, and full-time superhero."

He held out his hand and Batman shook it.

"I expected you to be taller, Mr. Wayne—like twelve feet tall," he then said. "Well, not you exactly—I mean, I expected _Batman _to be taller. And Bruce Wayne is Batman, of course, so… uh, you know what I mean. Hey, look at that."

He began to walk around, looking at the Batcave with a sense wonder I might have had myself when I first stepped foot there. He looked adorable as he stood in front of the life-sized, animatronic _T. rex_ Batman kept displayed in the cave. It stood right next to the giant penny, right where it always has been.

"What's his name?" he asked us.

"It doesn't have a—"

"Fido," I answered.

Batman looked at me and I could see his eyebrows furrowing through his mask.

"Fido?" he asked, incredulously. "You name my _Tyrannosaurus,_ Fido?"

I turned my head away from him and kept quiet, doing my best to avoid meeting his gaze. If there's one thing Batman hated more than me indirectly revealing our secret identities to someone, it's me naming his dinosaur.

For the record, I named his penny Penny so he wouldn't notice.

"So, uh, Spider-Man," I said, drawing attention away from my complete inability to keep Batman from kicking me out of the Family, "isn't your costume, like, red and blue? How come it's black?"

Once he put his mask on, his costume then seemed to fizz and flicker for a moment, like some sort of hologram. Then all of a sudden its color scheme started changing in a way that made it look like it was a de-pixilating photograph on a computer screen, as a more familiar red and blue pattern began replacing the black outfit.

"Unstable molecules (TM)," he explained, and his outfit proceeded to change back to the black patterned one that had a large spider-shaped insignia on the front and back. "I just thought the black suit complimented Gotham better than my classic threads. Though my choice of wardrobe isn't really the topic I came here to discuss."

Spider-Man looked thoughtful for a while, before approaching one of the glass cases to the side of the cave. He then eyed the original Robin costume from head to toe.

"The first Robin," he began. "He's Nightwing now, right?"

"He is," I answered.

He then turned to where Batman sat and said, "He's also Richard Grayson, right? One of the eccentric billionaire and philanthropist Bruce Wayne's adopted sons. At least, as far as everyone else knows, that's all there is to it."

"Dick," I corrected.

"…Well, that was uncalled for," he said, suddenly.

"What?" I asked, before realizing what I just said. "Wait, no! I wasn't calling you—I mean, Richard Grayson, his nickname's 'Dick'. We call him 'Dick'."

There was short pause where Batman stopped typing momentarily, and resumed just as quickly without missing a beat. I could almost picture him mentally sighing and shaking his head.

"So you do know at least _one _member of the Family," he remarked, thankfully refusing to comment on my mistake, much to my pleasure. Or displeasure. It really depends on whether him saying anything or not saying anything at all was preferable and less embarrassing.

"Oh, I know the rest," replied Spider-Man, as he approached the rest of the glass cases displaying the old Robin and Batgirl outfits. "With the exception of Stephanie, they're all your children, adopted or, in one case, not."

"Is that so?" asked Batman.

"That's right," continued Spider-Man. "And if I'm right about everyone, then Jason Todd was the second Robin and now the Red Hood, Timothy Drake was the third Robin and now Red Robin, your son Damian Wayne is the new Robin-Robin, and Cassandra Cain was the second Batgirl and is now Black Bat—whom I've had the pleasure of encountering when Wolverine and I traveled to Madripoor. Meanwhile, since the fourth Robin was a blonde girl, I assume she was Stephanie, who's now the third Batgirl."

"Impressive," remarked Batman. "Except for one thing. You assume Cassandra was a 'second' Batgirl, and Stephanie is the 'third'."

"Well, I know for a fact that the first one was a redhead," said Spider-Man. "And Cassandra Cain, the second Batgirl, has black hair."

"Cassandra could have just died her hair and changed outfits for all you know," argued Batman. "How can you be so confident that before Stephanie, there have been two Batgirls?"

"Sure, she could have done that, like you said," answered Spider-Man. "But it's not like she can change her body type. The first Batgirl was taller, was slightly more muscled, and had bigger… well, uh, she was taller. On the other hand, Cassandra is petite and shorter than the 'first'. Obviously, I'm running on conjecture here, but as far as I can tell from what I've observed, they're two different people."

As I looked at Batman's reaction, I caught a small glimpse of him smirking for a moment—which, in all honesty, is the closest thing to a smile that I've ever seen him make when in costume. I guess that counts as one, right? As a smile, I mean? If so, that's one item crossed out of 'Stephanie Brown's Quintessential Batfamily Bucket List'.

Tune in next time when she tries to figure out how long Nightwing fixes his hair in the morning, and how many hair care products he uses. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel.

"You have keen sense for detail," complimented Batman. Something that is, for the record, hilarious and sad to me since someone who isn't even a member of our 'Family' got a compliment out of him before I did. Yay, Steph.

"I'll say," I remarked, and smiled coyly in Spider-Man's direction. "What were you going to say that were bigger about Batgirl number one?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," he mumbled. "So uh, Batman. Do you want to hear how I found out about all of your secret identities?"

"I thought you said you didn't know how," said Batman.

"I don't know how I _stumbled_ onto what led me to finding out—that was all purely by chance," said Spider-Man. "But how I pieced it all together? That one I can explain."

Batman attached an auxiliary cable into the Batcomputer and connected the other end of it onto the access panel on his gauntlet. It was only then that I chanced to look up at the screen and notice what he'd been typing.

They were schematics for a small town in Kansas called, wait for it… _Small_ville. These towns need to get a better naming sense.

"Oracle can make better use of what you've found out," said Batman. "You can tell her later."

"What do you need those for?" I asked him.

He disconnected the auxiliary as soon as the download finished and he then stood up from his chair.

"Doomsday clones have appeared in Smallville, Kansas. I'm going away for a few days to take care of the situation with what's left of the rest of the League, so I'll be gone until then. It'll take maybe a week at most," he said, as he tinkered with his gauntlet. "That is, if we can somehow find out where they're coming from as quickly as I hope. In the meantime, Batgirl, you'll be in-charge of the cave and the city while I'm gone."

Oh, Batman is going away for a while? Well, good for him. He needs a vaca—

"What did you say?" I cried in shock.

"I said I'll be going away for a while, and that—"

"No, no, no," I cut him off. "I heard what you said. What I mean is that, are you serious with what you just said?"

"Yes," he answered, and for the record I had a hard time convincing myself that Batman was not joking at the time. And since,you know, Batman does not joke _ever,_ you can tell that it was just _that_ surprising for me to hear him to say what he said. "Like I said, you'll be in-charge of manning the cave and patrolling the city while I'm gone."

"Wait, me?" I asked him. "Are you sure? But Nightwing—"

"Former members of the League of Assassins have set up shop in Bludhaven," said Batman. "He's in charge of resolving that issue."

"League of Assassins?" asked Spider-Man. "Aren't they called the League of Shadows?"

Batman glared at him and said, in dead seriousness, _"No."_

"Well, uh, how about Red Hood?" I asked next. "Isn't he—?"

"In San Francisco, or so I'm told. Though, it's not like I'd leave the cave to Jason."

Well, it was comforting to know that he trusts me more than someone else—_anyone_ else, actually—by that point in time.

"Tim—?"

"With the Titans, fighting Doctor Light," he answered.

"Damian—?"

"With Nightwing," came the reply. "For obvious reasons."

I sighed. That _should_ have been obvious.

"And Cass—?"

"I requested her presence, but she says she's caught up in something at the moment. Something pertaining to her father," replied Batman. "Though she says she'll try to come in a few days."

I took a deep breath, trying to calm myself down.

"This is a test, isn't it?" I asked him. I was so sure that it was just that. A test, like he always does with me. "One of your sick games to see if you can trust me? Because, apparently, you still don't."

"Think of it that way if it helps," he said. "But the reality of it is that I _do_ trust you and I do need your help."

Batman needs my help? Did he just say that he needs _help? _And that he needs _my _help?

"But, wait," I cried. This was just _all_ too overwhelming. "I can't do this on my own. I mean, the entirety of Gotham? I'm not _you. _I can't patrol and protect one of the largest cities on the East Coast on my _own _in the dead of winter."

"You don't have to," he said conclusively. "You have him."

He pointed at Peter.

"_Me?"_ asked Spider-Man.

"Batgirl says she can't do this alone," said Batman. "I'm asking you to help her."

Spider-Man looked thoughtful for a moment, like he was considering what Batman said. However, it was obvious what he was thinking about.

"I don't have the lack of heart nor the lack of conscience to ignore anyone who needs my help—especially since Batman _himself _asked me to_—_but," he told him, "about the reason I'm here—"

"Obviously, I won't be able to help you with that at the moment," said Batman. "The Justice League is short on manpower. Superman and most of our other powerhouses are off-world, as is most of your Avengers, dealing with the Anti-Monitor's release of the Annihilation Wave from a Negative Zone portal on the other side of the universe."

"Right. They left two days ago," said Spider-Man, contemplating. "Cap asked me to come, but my Aunt May would have been worried sick if I she didn't hear from me for days."

"I'm needed to coordinate the containment team charged with taking out the Doomsday clones, which will keep me in Kansas for some time," continued Batman. "Which is why I'm deputizing you—just temporarily if you wish."

"Deputizing me?"

"As of today, you are a member of the Family," declared Batman. "You're welcome to use the cave at any time and all its resources are available to you, including the extensive criminal database we keep of all known supervillains and their associates. Batgirl will assist you in your investigation while I'm gone—in the meantime, you will help her patrol at night and keep an eye on my city."

"But… why?" he asked. I was asking the same question.

"'Why?'," repeated Batman.

"Why do you… How come you trust me so much?"

Batman looked thoughtful for a moment. "Do you remember when we first met?"

"Us? But this is the first time we've met."

"Face-to-face. This is the first time we've met face-to-face," corrected Batman. "My mistake. Then let me rephrase the question. Do you remember the first time we've fought together?"

"…No, I'm not sure I do."

"I do," said Batman.

He paced around the cave, looking grim and dark as usual, but there was something different about it—I couldn't tell _what _it was that seemed different. All I could tell was that there _was _something different about the way he conducted himself that night. Like there was something bothering him and he didn't want us to know.

"Five years ago, Darkseid and Thanos waged war on each other in their search for the Infinity Gems," he began, "as collecting those were the only way one or the other would be able to complete the Anti-Life Equation, and either put the universe to its knees as Darkseid would wish it, or destroy the universe as Thanos would desire it. The final Infinity Gem, the Power Gem, had somehow found its way to New York, and so did Darkseid and Thanos' war. Every superhero on Earth joined forces and managed to fight the two of them and their armies back, then gave chase through a portal created by your colleague Thor to end the war once and for all."

I remembered that. It was all over the news. They called it The War to End All Wars, which is hilarious since, if you've been studying up for your history exam like I have, you'd know that's what they called World War I before it had a sequel. And yet the name fit so well because as far as everyone knew, it wasn't just the world that was doomed, but all of _reality._

Still, in hindsight the name turned out to be ill-fitting after all. And honestly, thank God for that.

"Except you," Batman told him. "Do you remember what you did?"

Spider-Man fell silent. "I did something stupid, didn't I?"

"In some ways, yes," confirmed Batman. "But that's not remotely the point. Do you really not remember?"

"No," answered Spider-Man. "I'm trying but… I really can't. How stupid was it?"

Batman shook his head. "Try harder," he told Spider-Man. "And you'll understand why I trust you."

"Huh. I still don't get it," mumbled Spider-Man. He seemed to think deeply about what Batman said. "But as far as your offer stands, I accept. So don't mind me then when I grab some chicken wings from the Bat-fridge later."

"The refrigerator is upstairs, in the mansion's second wing just past the dining room on the first floor," said Batman. "Though Alfred made steak tonight. You're still welcome to help yourself if there are leftovers."

"Oh, no, I wasn't… I mean, that was a…" began Spider-Man, before I elbowed him and told him not to bother. "Never mind."

"The extent of your responsibility will make protecting this city long and arduous," said Batman. "I know you hold responsibility over New York City, and I do not make light of what you've done for it, but this is not New York. It's Gotham."

"Are you kidding me?" asked Spider-Man. "Responsibility is my schtick, pal. Batgirl and me will keep this city safe as long as we're here."

Spider-Man then looked at me, and nodded.

"Ain't that right, partner?" he asked, and held out his hand.

I grabbed it and we shook hands.

"Couldn't have said it better myself, partner," I said, and it's not like I had a choice or anything. Though I'm not really complaining either.

When we looked back at where Batman was, he'd already gone.

"_Bosh'tet," _remarked Spider-Man. "He disappeared."

_"Mass Effect?" _I asked. "And he does that all the time. You'll get used to it."

"Yeah, it's from _Mass Effect,"_ he said. "And I do that 'disappearing while people are looking away' thing, too."

"Huh, cool. Quarians are the best," I said. "And it must suck to be on the receiving end of that little trick, huh?"

He picked up his backpack from the floor and slung it over his shoulders. "I'll make sure to pay him back for it," he said, playfully. "But more importantly, where do we go now?"

"We should go see Oracle," I said, while putting my cowl back on.

"Oracle?" he asked. "Oh, yeah. Batman mentioned him. Who is he?"

_"She_ was the first Batgirl," I told him. "And like Batman, I feel like you should meet her, too, seeing as we'll most likely be working with her for the rest of the week."

"We are?"

"Yeah, we are," I replied. "Oracle is _the _most knowledgeable and most connected information broker on the planet. Even though Batman gave you permission to use our resources and view the database, you'd need Oracle to actually access them."

"Oh. Cool, then," he agreed. "And I guess I _should_ meet her, since she's the only one of you guys that I don't know yet. Where is she?"

"You seem excited," I teased him.

"What? No, I'm not," he said defensively. "I mean, not that I'm _not _excited to meet her. I just don't have any reason in particular that'll fuel my excitement aside from the fact that she can help me track down the man I'm looking for."

"Is that so? I distinctly remember you using her… uh, assets to differentiate between her and Cass," I argued. "Don't tell me you aren't the _least_ bit interested to see her."

"I'm not," he denied, even though his cheeks were threatening to burn red through his mask. "I mean, I am. But only because, like I said, she can help me track down Osborn so I can take him down and get this thing over with."

"You need to work on your lying skills," I snarked at him.

"So they tell me," he snarked back. "Anyway, where's she at?"

"Gotham Clock Tower."

"Huh," he mumbled. "That's on the other side of town."

"Everything is on the other side of the town from Wayne Manor," I told him. "This entire estate has its own zip code."

"Man, it must be fun being rich," he remarked. "So, how do we get there? Batmobile? I don't think I heard it leave the Batcave, so maybe Batman didn't use it."

"Batman prefers that we call it the 'car', and the Batcave, the 'cave'."

He seemed to consider what I said. "How come?"

"He says adding 'Bat' to the front of everything is childish and amuses no one but ourselves," I explained. "Like using song lyrics in conversation."

"Heh. Funny you mentioned that," he said. "I was reading this article this morning that tried to prove that Tom Jones lyrics are the easiest to pass as casual conversation by observing how often they're used as such."

"It's _that_ common?" I asked.

"It's not unusual."

I took me some time before I got the joke.

"Oh my God," I cried. "I hate you."

He laughed in this loud, cheerful laugh, and before long I found myself laughing, too.

"Okay, okay," he said a while later after we both laughed our heads off. "Focus. So do we take the 'car'?"

"Can you drive?"

"I live in New York. So, no."

"Well, neither can I."

"So," he began, "what now? I can web swing us all the way there, but I left my extra web fluid at my hotel room, and I'm not sure if it'll last until we get there."

"Nah," I cried. "I have a better idea."

"What?"

"…We ride."

**End of Chapter 2**

* * *

**Author's Notes: **This was supposed to be longer, but I split the chapter into two because I'm trying to keep a lower word count per chapter here than in my other story, Turnabout. I thought it made sense since this is going to be a little bit more grounded, so the shorter chapters keep it from becoming more epic in length. And again, please leave a review and let me know what you think~


	3. Chase

**Spiders and Bats: An Arachnid in Gotham**

* * *

**For as long as I can remember, I've always hated silence. **

You know, those long, quiet lulls where no one is talking… when even the sound of your breathing was audible enough for your ears to pick up and it drives you crazy. I've always hated those.

I think it all started when my dad got sent to jail, all the way back to when I was a kid. Obviously, you'd think having a criminal in the family was enough for the neighbors to shun you, and it was. People were judgmental and prejudiced like that. But their kids though, they were a little different. They thought it was cool to have a supervillain for a dad, and in some twisted way, it kind of is. I mean, admit it, it's kind of awesome to have someone like, I don't know, Doctor Doom for a dad.

The kids on the playground will be like, "My dad brought me to the zoo and we saw a lion" or "Oh yeah, well, my dad brought me to Disneyland and I got to see Simba" then you'd be all "Well, my dad built a time machine and took me to go time-travelling to the Pleistocene epoch so we can bring home a Smilodon… for science, of course." But obviously, that was only if your dad was a 'cool' villain. Which mine was definitely not, so all the kids shunned me anyway.

Which rendered that previous statement about the neighbor kids being different kind of pointless. Anyway, moving on.

See how terrible my father is? It wasn't enough that he was supervillain, but he had to be some Riddler knock-off D-lister calling himself the 'Cluemaster', instead of someone legitimately cool like Doctor Doom or, I don't know, maybe Two-Face or Mr. Freeze.

Don't get me wrong though. I don't hate my father _nearly _as much as I let on. Or, at least, I don't hate my father as much as I hate silence. With the story of why I hate silence being the reason… I went on that whole tirade. Okay, so I got sidetracked there a little.

Just a little, right?

* * *

**Chapter Three: Chase**

* * *

**Right. All right, let's start again:**

Hello~! Welcome. My name is Stephanie Brown. Earlier, I said that I've hated quiet and silence for as long as I can remember.

Why do I hate silence, you might ask? And if you're not asking, don't worry, I'm not going to bore you with some long-winded story about my past. You'll probably want to just jump straight back to hearing more about Batgirl and Spider-Man adventuring together.

But for now, just… hear me out, okay? This won't take much of your time. I promise.

So, imagine this cute, little blonde girl with the biggest, bluest eyes you'll ever see, lying on her bed in the middle of the night, looking out at the stars outside her window. While she was doing that, she could hear her mother crying in the next room—her mother who was the sweetest, kindest, and most loving woman you'll ever meet in your life, crying because her husband, the little girl's father, turned out to be a supervillain.

And that bastard of a father got himself caught by the cops and sent to Ryker's, a supervillain prison all the way out in New York, leaving his wife and their little girl to fend for themselves.

Now imagine that little girl hearing her mother blame herself for how the father turned out—as if it was her mother's fault that her father was a bastard and a criminal. And when her mother stops crying and falls asleep, along with the sudden silence, a realization will dawn on that little girl—that she's suddenly all alone, lying on her bed in a quiet house, unaware that this sort of thing will continue to go on for years to come.

A broken mother that'll keep on crying herself to sleep, a terrible father who'll keep on reminding her that their family will never be the same again, and an enduring silence that will continue to rub in her face how alone she was now, without her being capable of doing anything about it—that 'lonely' was all she was now and who she'll ever be.

Yes, melodrama. What did you expect to hear from _me?_

Daddy issues, mommy issues, self-worth issues—it's the whole package, and Stephie has it all.

But you know what, there's a silver lining to all this. I've always hated silence—

"You know, saying 'We ride' after explicitly saying that neither of us can drive is bound to confuse people."

—and _he _makes the silence go away. It's why I started to like him, I guess.

"There was no one to confuse," I told him, as we rode The Bike with No Name through the snow covered streets of Old Gotham.

There's another reason why I hate silence, and it has something to do with him, but I'll tell you about that one later.

As we took a right turn at a roadblock near Crime Alley, he then said, "Sure, there wasn't."

It's been snowing for a day or two now. I think I've said this before, but when it snows in Gotham, there is never just a snow_storm_—it's always a snow _hurricane._ Or something. Snorricane? Snowwicane?

Anyway, as Gotham was by the East Coast and near the ocean, it had a number of low-lying areas that were easily buried in snow. It made a number of roads impassable, forcing us to take a lot of detours through whichever streets still looked like streets and not the theme park version of _Frozen. _I would have considered driving on rooftops, but apparently motorcycles weren't designed to scale walls, so we're stuck here.

I tried to make small talk to pass the time.

"Back at the cave," I began to say, "you said something about responsibility being your, uh…"

"_Schtick?"_

"Is that European or something?"

"Yiddish."

"Oh," I mumbled. "So you're Jewish?"

"I'm Lutheran, actually."

"Huh," I exclaimed. I looked at him through the rearview mirror and asked, "Then how come you know Yiddish?"

He looked at me like I asked an obvious question. At least, as far as I could tell that's what it looked like he was doing, since, you know, he's wearing a mask and all.

"I'm from New York," he said in a deadpan tone.

"Well," I began to argue, "it's not like everyone from New York knows how to speak—"

"I'm from _Queens, _New York."

"Oh," I mumbled, defeated. "That makes sense."

The air grew colder then, all of a sudden. As a chill started creeping up my spine, I checked the bike's screens and saw the temperature drop to an all-time low of seven degrees. I quickly opened the compartment to the side of The Bike with No Name, and grabbed a pair of goggles and two breather masks from inside. After strapping the goggles and the breather mask onto my cowl, I handed him the extra mask.

"No, it's alright," he declined, waving his hands dismissively.

"You sure?" I asked him. It was hard to ignore how thinner the air suddenly got.

"Positive," he answered. "This suit's nanotech should adapt to the cold soon enough. Which, if I may add, is a _huge _improvement over my old threads. I usually just wore a scarf and wool gloves with that one during this season of frostbites."

That got a laugh out of me. It was hilarious to imagine him in that red and blue outfit, wearing a scarf and woolen gloves. Throw in a bonnet and a sweater and the whole images just gets a whole lot funnier, though.

"Actually, I should be the one worried about you," he then told me. "You're shaking."

"Shaking?" I wondered. It was only then that I noticed myself shaking from the cold, if only slightly. Or maybe it was because he had his hands on my waist and it made me sort of ticklish. I couldn't tell. "The suit's temperature control must not be holding up."

"Should I be worried?" he asked again.

"No, I should be okay," I reassured him. "I'll just change into the thermal Batgirl suit at the clock tower."

We passed by Gotham General Hospital as we got out of Park Row, and I then took the next turn towards Sprang Bridge.

"So, like I was saying," I began again, "earlier, at the cave, you said something about responsibility being your… _snikt, _was it?"

"_Schtick," _he corrected.

"Whatever," I groaned. "So, I was wondering what you mean by that."

He looked at me through the rearview mirror, and somehow even though his face was concealed beneath his mask, I could tell that he looked… hesitant. Like he didn't know if he should answer or not. I wondered if it had been a mistake to ask that question, though I had absolutely no idea why it would be.

_Maybe it was something too personal to talk about?_ is what I started to think.

Maybe it was something he probably wouldn't want to talk about with a complete stranger. An important event that brought up memories too painful for him to mention. It might even be what led him to this life of, you know, superheroics.

That's how it always was, I figured. Some dark and troubled event in our past that led us to a life where we beat up bad guys and save the innocent—Bruce saw his parents shot in front of him, Dick saw his parents fall to their deaths after their acrobat act was sabotaged, Cass was confronted with death for the first time after being forced by her father to kill a man, and so on.

We don't do what we do on a whim, after all. There's always a reason behind it, whatever that reason may be.

Though come to think of it, the event doesn't always have to be tragic, if there's even an event at all—Tim, Babs, and I started on this path because we wanted to do the right thing. No matter what kind of tragedy stemmed from our living this life after the fact, what has always spurred us on in the beginning was the simple desire to do good.

I admit, I became Spoiler partly because I hated my father—especially after the trauma my mother suffered through the things he did—but also because when he came back to Gotham a more effective criminal, I knew he had to be stopped before his crimes escalated to the point where he would to _hurt _people to get what he wanted. Even someone as ineffectual as a Riddler knock-off can be dangerous when he lost the compulsion to leave clues—the one thing that limited him in some capacity.

Anyway, I thought that maybe Spider-Man and his… _schlick _or whatever regarding responsibility was related to what led to him to becoming a superhero, and that it wasn't something he could easily tell a girl he just met, even if that girl was a colleague in the hero business.

"With great power," he then spoke suddenly and solemnly as I was deep in thought, "there must also come great responsibility."

I tried to lighten the mood. "Did you get from a fortune cookie or something?"

He chuckled a little, but his expression—or what I could tell his expression must have been—didn't break from its seriousness.

"No, no," he said, "it's something my… uh, it's something _someone_ used to tell me, some time ago. That's all I feel like saying about that, sorry."

I shook my head. "No, it's perfectly fine. I understand," I reassured him, and bit my lip. "Actually, I'm the one who should be sorry for asking."

"No, you shouldn't be," he told me. "It's not like you—"

He stopped suddenly, and jerked his head.

"Spider-sense tingling," I heard him whisper. He then turned to me and said coolly, "You should ramp the bike up onto the sidewalk."

As I wondered why, I heard the roaring of engines behind us, and instinctively pulled The Bike with No Name onto the sidewalk. As soon as I did, a gray Toyota Prius with its roof ripped off sped past us, followed by four GCPD squad cars.

"Is it just me or was that a giant crocodile man behind the wheel of a stolen Toyota Prius?" he asked.

"Giant crocodile… that was Killer Croc? I didn't notice with how fast the car went by," I exclaimed in surprise. "And how could you tell that it was stolen? I mean, besides from the torn roof and the fact that a giant crocodile man was driving it, who you may or may not know is a prominent member of Batman's rogues gallery."

"Well, in one of the squad cars, a guy was radioing dispatch about finding the stolen Prius that was hijacked as get-away vehicle from a robbery at the First Bank of Gotham," he explained in detail.

"Right," I murmured in wonder, "okay, new question: how did you hear what the officers were saying? They sped by just as fast as…"

"You see, eight years ago I attended a science exhibit where I was bitten by a radioactive spider," he said, sarcastically, "which granted me the proportional strength, speed, and agility of a spider, while also giving me enhanced senses, the ability to stick to any surface, as well as a sixth sense that warns me of incoming—alright, am I going to have to tell my entire origin story or are we gonna catch that guy?"

"You don't have to be so snarky about it," I complained. "And you didn't mention your web shoot-y powers."

"My web shoot-y—my web shooting isn't a superpower," he clarified.

"It's not?" I asked.

He pulled back his left sleeve and showed me a small, steel bracelet kind of thing on his wrist, which was then connected to a pressure pad on his palm while a small nozzle was attached to his left glove.

"Web shooters," he said. "Made 'em from scratch myself."

I thought about it for a moment, as we dodged a trash can that flew out of nowhere from the car chase a few blocks in front of us.

"So they're not, like, biological?"

"No, they aren't," he answered, as he readjusted his sleeve. "I mean, that would be pretty weird, wouldn't it? I'd have to grow new organs in my arms that can produce organic silk webbing, then I'd need to have spinnerets on my wrists to be able to _spin_ the silk. Lovecraft would be so proud."

"Or worse, you could have the webs coming out of your butt," I added helpfully.

"Spiders don't actually have their webs coming out of their butts," he began to explain. "They have specialized organs in their thoraxes that—"

"I was making a joke, professor," I said. I wasn't nearly as bad in Biology as I looked.

"Not a professor yet," he then said. "Still working on my PhD, but I do have my Master's, so there's that."

Meaningless conversations like this between us are going to happen a _lot. _Trust me, I'm telling this story from the future.

As we had that conversation, the street came to a sharp right turn as a blockade straight ahead prevented entry towards the Industrial District. Killer Croc made the turn without fail, easing the wheel into a right as he neared the corner before slamming on the gas and revving on ahead.

The police cars that were tailing him weren't so lucky. The three behind slowed down significantly as they neared the corner, not even attempting to try that same stunt, and for good reason: the snow had made the road slippery, and a quick turn like that, if executed poorly, could send them careening out of control, which could easily turn out to be a fatal move. Croc was crazy enough to do a stunt like that because he could survive a crash if it so happened—these cops wouldn't wager that _they_ would as long as they're able.

As luck would have it, the cruiser in front attempted the same stunt in its eagerness to follow the runaway car.

Unfortunately for it, it slowed down at the corner too late, and it turned right too early. The car tipped to the left, and slammed hard into the concrete. The force and velocity of the blow caused it to bounce upwards into the air, in the manner reminiscent of how those _Fast and Furious _movies like to think physics works.

Though that insult probably sounded a little hollow now that I'm seeing one do their version of physics for real.

Before I could react, my passenger leapt into the air and shot a webline onto the building adjacent to us. He tugged at the web, and positioned himself at an angle that launched him towards police car. Time seemed to slow to a stop as I saw his every movement, and I couldn't help but wonder how fast he was going then.

His right hand stuck onto the passenger side of the car, and when he found that he had a good grip of the vehicle, in one, quick swing he tossed the car back onto the ground right-side up. He then shot another webline as he neared the pavement and swung away.

I drove towards the police car as its passengers alighted. The other three vehicles zipped past us, continuing on their pursuit.

"Jesus Christ, Renee," cried a familiar voice. The man that got off from the passenger seat was a little on the hefty side. He looked like he stepped right out of an old noir flick, what with the trenchcoat and the fedora on his head, while underneath his coat was a Kevlar vest emblazoned with the letters 'GCPD' worn over a stack of sweaters. The five o'clock shadow on his face added a layer of gruffness to an already intimidating-looking man "That was a rookie move if I ever saw one. You're supposed to be better than that. You could have gotten us killed."

From the driver's seat alighted a woman with curly hair and a light, tanned complexion, and was decked in a similar noir-ish ensemble of trenchcoat and fedora, along with the not so noir-ish Christmas sweaters.

"Look, Harv. I'm sorry, alright?" she apologized. "Jones caught me by surprise, and I made the turn on instinct. Didn't think the bastard was crazy enough to pull off something like that."

"You're even _talking _like some rookie," exclaimed the man. "Like you just flew in from small town in Kansas and don't know how things work around here. This is _Gotham. _Everyone here is _crazy _enough to do the things you think people aren't supposed to be crazy enough to do. From the mob, to the bad guys, to the lunatic heroes dressed up like ba—"

I cleared my throat. The two of them turned to look in my direction, and apparent it was only then did they realize that I was there.

"Detective Bullock," I choked out a greeting, "and Detective Montoya."

"Batgirl," greeted Bullock, "or, at least, the new Batgirl. You're the new one, right?"

"Y-Yeah, that's me," I stuttered, nervously.

This would be the first time I've interacted with the GCPD since I became Batgirl, so I guess I'm a little nervous about making a good first impression. I wonder if they'll realize I'm the girl that used to be Spoiler and kinda-Robin. I mean, it's a pretty well-known fact that the first Robin changed identities and became Nightwing, even if they don't know his secret identity as Dick Grayson.

Maybe they'll realize that with me, too?

"Batgirl number three," I introduced myself, "or four, depending on how you're counting. Though the two before me did wear the same costume, so I guess that'd be confusing for anyone keeping track."

"You're definitely a different Batgirl," mused Bullock as he reached into the car and pulled out his radio. "The last one was never this chatty."

I guess Cass never talked much. I mean, I knew that already, but hearing it from someone else outside of the Family really hammers it in that she was born and raised as the ultimate assassin—silent, efficient, and professional. It's a miracle how we've managed to get along so well with our almost opposite personalities and considering our respective hang-ups. Though those hang-ups are probably how we bonded in the first place—daddy issues are such a convenient conversation piece, wouldn't you agree?

"Yeah, uh, sorry about that," I apologized. "So, er, I'm just stopping by to check if you're both alright."

"We are, thanks to your friend," said Renee, and she turned towards the direction Spider-Man swung off to. "I don't think I've ever seen him before. Was that Nightwing in a new costume?"

"No, and I don't think Nightwing has ever been able to carry a car with one hand," I told her, and we both glanced at the dent he made on the door on the passenger's side of the car.

I didn't think Peter was strong enough to carry a car, either, but, well, there we have it. Renee and I just stood there for a moment, probably in disbelief. I mean, it's funny—you know Superman exists, and that he's not the only one with powers like that that can do feats like lift a car, so it really shouldn't come off as a surprise anymore. But you don't usually see much in the way of superpowers like that in Gotham, which is why our main superhero is 'just' a rich guy in an armored suit that's armed to the teeth.

Meanwhile, Bullock was on the radio. "Dispatch, this Bullock," he said loudly, "perp is being pursued through the Bowery by a mask and three of my squad. The mask is a friendly, I repeat, the mask is a friendly. One of the Bat's people. Batgirl will be follow shortly in pursuit."

Bullock then turned towards me, and he and Renee nodded their heads, as if to say 'Go on and do your thing. We've got you covered.'

"I should go," I declared briefly, and went on my way, smiling as I did.

**End of Chapter 3**


	4. Promise

**Spiders and Bats: An Arachnid in Gotham**

* * *

**Chapter Four: Promise**

* * *

**It didn't take long before I was able to catch up to the pursuing officers, and sped past them. After a while I finally caught up with Spider-Man and Croc in the middle of the Bowery District. They were both standing in the middle of a snow covered road, glaring at each other. A little ways away, a giant web was laid out between two lampposts, and dead center in that web was the stolen Prius, looking little more than a giant, grey fly with four wheels and a mileage of fifty miles per gallon, and this is a terrible metaphor, I know.**

The three police cars parked quite a distance from the standoff, while the officers they carried came out one by one, with each of them taking out their sidearms and taking aim. I gestured them to stop.

"Sorry, miss," said one of the officers, "but we don't take orders from vigilantes."

"I'm not ordering you to do anything," I argued. "All I'm asking is that you stay your hand for now, and let us handle this. There's no need for anyone to shoot anyone else, alright?"

The officer hesitated to speak.

"Look, it's not like we don't trust you or anything, and I don't want to sound rude when I say this," he said after a brief pause, uneasily. He then looked at the other cops with him, trying to gauge whether they shared his sentiment. When he figured that they did, he then turned back to me and said, "But you're not exactly Batman, and that other kid out there doesn't look like he can put up a fight against Croc. If we have reason to think you can't handle this on your own, we _will _do our job and shoot Croc if necessary."

I can distinctly remember a time when the words 'we will do our job' was the last thing you'd hear coming out of a GCPD officer's mouth, unless he was being sarcastic. Times sure have changed, and contrary to popular belief, it's not always 'for the worse' even in Gotham.

"No, see, I understand where you're coming from," I told him, "but I'm not just some random chick who took this hero thing up as a gig. I know what I'm getting into, and my guy out there knows what he's getting into, too. We can do this. Trust us."

"Be that as it may, we're still take action if we see fit," argued the officer with finality. "Wouldn't want a couple of teenagers injured under our watch."

"I'm almost twenty," I said abruptly, "and I'm pretty sure he's older than I am, so you don't have to worry about scraping a couple of teenagers' corpses from the pavement."

"Reassuring," muttered the officer, and I went to where Peter was.

I had parked The Bike with No Name by the sidewalk when Spider-Man called out to me.

"Batgirl, I think this guy stole from the mob, too. Or the mafia. Or whatever underground criminal organization it is that you have here in Gotham," he said, in uncertain terms. _"Is_ there a mob in Gotham?"

Oh man, he's asking if there's a mob in Gotham. That's like asking whether Michelangelo painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, or whether the Earth revolves around the sun, or whether Damian Wayne is a little brat who never fails to get on my nerves.

"You might as well ask if they have ice in Iceland," I told him, picking from my slew of carefully selected analogies.

He stared at me with a look that seemed to ask whether I knew what I was talking about.

"What?" I asked him.

"They have green, open fields and pastures in Iceland," he then said, unimpressed. "It's Greenland where there's ice."

"_What?" _I asked again, dejectedly this time.

"Yeah, I know," he said in a resigned tone. "The Vikings did it to confuse people, or something. At least that's what Thor said. Anyway, there were two briefcases presumably filled with cash in the back of car, besides the duffel bag full of money which I assume is from the bank. I noticed it when I flipped his car onto the web trap I made."

Right. I see now that there's a reason for my getting a C in Geography in high school. And I thought it was just because Mr. Willingham hated my guts. And did Spider-Man just say he flipped a car?

"You flipped his car?" I asked him, disbelievingly.

"Proportional strength of a spider," he said, nonchalantly, as if that made sense to me. Or maybe it was my fault for never realizing that ability to carry a car might also translate to ability to throw it.

On the other side of the road from us stood Killer Croc. A monster of a man, Waylon Jones, as his real name goes, towered over us at probably seven to eight feet tall, maybe even nine. I don't really know. It varies, I guess? Or it's probably because it's _really _hard to gauge how tall someone is when you're terrified to look at them straight in the face.

He sneered at us, and I did my best not to look intimated by him. This wasn't the first time I've _seen_ Croc, but this was probably the first time I was to face him head on in a fight. Luckily for me, I wasn't going to do it alone.

"You have no idea what you're getting into, kid," he cried suddenly, in a deep voice that growled rather than spoke. "I don't usually do this, but I'm giving you just this one chance at walking away."

"_One_ chance?" asked Spider-Man. "Damn, that's harsh. Alright, I don't wanna blow it if you're just gonna give me _one _chance. I mean, what if I decide to take this chance and walk away, and I regret doing it, or I don't take this chance to walk away, and end up regretting not taking it. I mean, really, _one _chance. How am I _ever_ going to decide? Maybe I could sleep on it. Yeah, can you give me at least until tomorrow to think about?"

"You mocking me, boy?" Croc growled. He looked pissed off now more than before. "You've no idea about what's coming. All I'm trying to do is hightail out of this dump of a city before it hits, so what say you and me both walk away from this and go on our separate ways. I wouldn't want to smear my fists with what's left of your face when I'm through with you."

_There's something wrong, _I thought. _I don't really know him too well outside of his file, but I do know that Croc is one of the last people who'd attempt to talk his way out of a fight. He must really want to get out of here as fast as he can._

_And what is he talking about? What's coming? _

"Right, let me think about it," Spider-Man announced. "Nope, sorry. See, from how I see it, good guys catch bad guys, and bad guys get thrown in jail. You stole money, which is wrong, by the way, making you a bad guy, and it's my job as a good guy to catch you and throw you in jail. That's how the world works from I'm standing."

Croc sneered, and shook his head.

"Kid, you're in Gotham," said Croc in jest. "With a worldview like that, what _you're_ standing on is _very_ shaky ground."

He then charged at us, and it was in that moment that I caught a glimpse of the Killer Croc detailed in Batman's files—animalistic and prone to lashing out in a bestial rage, with the strength, speed and size to back it up. The colossal monster of a man was faster than what his size would suggest, and he closed the gap between us and him in as quickly as half a second. As I readied myself to dodge out of the way, I couldn't help but notice that Spider-Man made no movement.

He simply stood his ground.

And in a heartbeat, he met Croc head on. The behemoth raised his fists and immediately brought them down on Spider-Man's head, but the wallcrawler stopped Croc's arms on their way down, blocking his attack. I heard the pavement beneath him crack audibly from the force of the blow.

_What's he doing? I've seen him dodge gunfire. There's no way he couldn't have dodged Croc._

That's what I thought, but I guess that goes to show just how much I didn't know about Spider-Man. He _could _have dodged Croc, sure, but:

"Can't have you going wild now, pal," he said, and he grabbed Croc by the arms. He then effortlessly lifted Croc overhead and slammed onto the pavement with enough force to break it. "I'm assuming there are people in the apartment behind me, and if you so much as put them or anyone else here in danger, I won't hesitate to _break _you."

As I looked at the building behind us, and sure enough it was an old apartment building. Everyone inside must be sound asleep, unaware of the fight happening in the cold outside. I don't know how strong Croc is, and I defeinitely don't know if he's strong enough to collapse a building, but Spider-Man wasn't taking any chances.

The behemoth didn't seem to want to listen to him. They wrestled on the pavement as Spider-Man struggled to pin Croc down with an armlock. When he realized he couldn't overpower his attacker, Croc then opened his jaws, and with jagged teeth he began to chomp at Spider-Man's head. The wallcrawler narrowly missed getting his face ripped off.

"Crap, this bites," he cried, in a lame attempt to make a joke.

I didn't know what to do. As I saw it I'd only be getting in the way, which I had told myself before was the last thing I was going to be when I became Batgirl—the last thing I was going to be was someone who's only noteworthy talent was screwing up and getting in a fight way in over her head. I screwed up as Spoiler, and I screwed up as Robin. No way was I going to be some sort of liability again as Batgirl.

I reached into the pouch strapped my right thigh and took out Bab's patented Electric Gauntlets. They were like normal brass knuckles, only more shocking.

Okay, that joke was bad and I feel bad. What do you expect? I was going to punch a man-sized crocodile in the face. One that could very well break _my _face. There was hardly any time to think of a good quip.

As I began to approach them, charging up my fists, Spider-Man stopped me.

"Batgirl, stay back," he cried. "This guy's too danger—"

Sensing an opportunity, Croc freed his arm once his opponent was distracted. He struck Spider-Man across the chest, sending him flying with powerful backhand swing. The wallcrawler crashed into the webbed Prius hanging in mid-air, with enough force to bring down the two lampposts it was attached to. They all loudly crashed to the pavement.

A dazed Spider-Man lied in a heap in the front seat of the car, holding his head as Croc began to approach him.

"I told you to walk away, but you had to be an ass about it," he said, in a mocking tone. "Did you think you can take me? Freakin' _Batman _thinks twice about facing me. You're not Batman. No one here is—!"

An electrically-charged haymaker to the back of the knee got him to kneel on the ground, shutting him up. Another jab cuts across his cheek, sending a single, jagged tooth flying out of a mouth filled with sharp, jagged teeth, and his face falls flat on the ground.

When he turned around, I like to imagine that he was expecting Batman himself to have been the one to have made him kneel and kiss the ground. I like to think that he was pissed out of his mind when he saw instead this blonde, blue-eyed, hundred and thirty pound mouse of a girl, barely five feet five inches tall, with her dukes up, telling him to get up and have a go at her.

Croc moves fast. He swipes at me with a clawed hand, but I dodge at the last second, jabbing him twice in the forearm and elbow. He winces, and that made me crack a smile a little. He was hurt, and _I_ was the one hurting him. He lunged at me as quick as an arrow, but I rolled to the left and threw a charged punch that landed on his side, just under his ribs. It throws him off-balance and he slips on the snow.

He was fast, but my teachers were faster, and they had skills to back up that speed. Bruce taught me how to defend myself, sure, but it was Cass who taught me how to fight. And when Lady Shiva's daughter is your teacher, you'd be hard-pressed _not_ to find yourself getting better as a fighter. Cass taught me everything I know, and even though almost all our sparring sessions ended up with me lying on the ground, writhing in my pain and doing everything in my power to keep myself from throwing up, I still learned more from her than I ever would have from anyone else.

Cass was the one who taught me that strength, speed, and size could only get someone so far.

For all his strength and speed, Croc didn't have the skills to make good use of them. It didn't matter how strong he was or how fast he was—without any sort of fighting ability, he was just a rowdy drunk in bar in need of a good asskicking. And it was my job give him as good as he deserves.

When he stood up and resumed his attack, I saw every move he made before he made them, and avoided them all while returning a few potshots in kind. The electric blasts were huge help, too, of course. I can imagine doing zilch to him if I were to just punch him in the face without them, unless the plan was to tickle him.

Unfortunately, I got too carried away. When he threw another punch, I decided to go under it, then attack him head on. Big mistake. The first two body shots made him take a step back, so I launched a couple more assaults to pressure points on his stomach and chest, thinking I could put him down. I underestimated how much punishment he could take, and before I could throw another jab, he grabbed me by the arm and pinned me down to the pavement. I hit the asphalt hard, and blood came seeping from my mouth.

_You really are the Amazing Screw-up Steph, _I thought to myself, snickering as I did.

Keeping my distance was the only way I was able to put him on the defensive. Once I decided to get in close and personal, he simply powered through my attacks and stopped them in their tracks. Wow, that rhymed.

"What are you laughing at?" he asked, in that menacing growl.

"I j-just…" I stuttered, not out of fear but from how ridiculous this situation sounded, when you think about it. As I tasted the blood in my mouth, I said, "I just never thought I'd be killed by a crocodile in the middle of the street. It sounds like a Monty Python sketch. Really funny way to die."

I thought about why the police weren't doing anything. They said they'd pitch in to do their job if they deemed that we weren't able to handle this. I wondered if getting pinned down on the ground by a man-sized crocodile looked like I was still handling the situation pretty well to them. But when I looked at them, with their faces in awe, I thought that maybe they were too frightened to make a move. Understandable, given the circumstances.

Turns out they weren't looking at us.

"What makes you think I want to kill y—" Croc began to ask, but he didn't finish. A webline shot past us, and when we both turned to look at where it came from, I saw something that legitimately scared me.

Spider-Man is one of the nicest, most kind-hearted, laidback people I've ever met. He was fun to be around, and he had a knack for telling lame jokes and making a complete goofball of himself with how he never seemed to run out of things to say. But the man is damn scary when he shuts up.

What I saw launching itself at Croc on that webline and decking him so hard so hard in the face that _I _could feel it, not to mention send him flying off like ragdoll, didn't seem like Spider-Man at the time—didn't seem like _Peter _at the time.

What I saw was a man clad in black with a stylized white spider on his chest, wearing a blank, expressionless mask that had two giant bug-eyes that seemed to stare right through you. He looked like someone you wouldn't want crawling down a wall towards you in some dark alley. And the worst part was that throughout that attack, he didn't say a single word. No quips, no jokes—nothing.

Remember when I said that there was another reason why I hated silence? Silence reminded me of Spider-Man whenever he stops playing around. And for all his bad jokes and terrible taste in food—he loves wheatcakes for some reason—when he shuts up, all you're left with is this faceless, man-sized spider that can dodge bullets, lift cars, and punch giant crocodile men into orbit.

Before Croc could get far, however, Spider-Man launched another webline at the monster and stopped him mid-flight. He then swung him overhead and pulled him hard back onto the ground, making him crash into the pavement with enough force to form a small crater. Relentlessly, Spider-Man then pounced on the fallen behemoth and began punching away at his face. Every blow of fist against skull continued to crumble the pavement beneath them.

It was a while before I snapped out of the daze I found myself in.

I shouted at Spider-Man to stop, and when I did, he looked up at me all of a sudden, like he'd been in some sort of trance. He stood up, seemingly unaware of what he had doing been up until that moment.

When the realization seemingly dawned on him, he looked horrified. He stared at his bloody hands, and shook his head.

I walked up to him, and put my hand on his.

"Peter?" I whispered.

"I don't know what came over me," he mumbled, almost inaudibly. "When I saw you on the ground… I thought… I thought he was going to… no, never again. Never again. As long as I'm around… no one dies as long as I'm around. I promised. It's my responsibility."

He then closed his hand around mine, and shook his head.

"Never again," he continued to mumble, but he didn't seem to be talking to me this time. "Never again… what happened to you, I won't let that happen to anyone else as long as I lived… that's my responsibility. I promised you that… right, Gwen? I promised."

Beneath us, Croc began to stir. "Just wanted to get out of the city," he said drunkenly, as if he was only half-conscious. "Just wanted to get out of this hellhole. Get far away from what's coming."

I knelt down beside him. "Start talking. What are you going on about?" I asked. "What's coming? And don't say winter, 'cause it already came."

"You have no idea," he said, hoarsely. "The things happening in the background, just under your noses. Horrible things, nothing you've ever seen before. Things on a scale not even Batman can fathom."

"I'm sure if he weren't out of town he'd tell you otherwise," I told him.

He looked legitimately surprised. "Out of town?"

_Crap. Should I have said that?_

"Yeah, out of town," I told him anyway. They were bound to figure it out sooner or later. "He's not in Gotham right now, but he… left _me _in charge of the city while he's gone."

All of a sudden, Killer Croc began laughing. Not in some maniacal, villainous cackle—it was a bitter laugh, the kind you'd hear from someone who had lost all hope. "Then this whole city might as well burn down right this moment."

He shook his head, and spat out a gob of blood and saliva.

"Listen, kid," he said, uncharacteristically calm. "Call Batman back. He's your only chance at stopping what's coming. Without him, Gotham might as well have signed its own death warrant."

"Why should I trust what you're saying?" I questioned him. "You tried to kill us."

"Don't you try and accuse me of something I didn't do!" he snarled. He suddenly attempted to get up, but fell back down in pain just as quickly. "I wasn't… trying to kill you. I just wanted to get out of the city. Get away before it hits."

"Before _what_ hits? What are you trying to say?" cried Spider-Man. "You've been nothing but vague."

"Heh," chuckled Croc. "That's the thing, actually. No words can describe what it is. _I _don't even know what it is. No one does. But what everyone does know is that it's coming, and when it does there's nothing you can do to—"

One electrically-charged punch to the jaw and he was finally out cold. Spider-Man stared at me in disbelief.

"He was asking for it," I argued, trying to justify what I did. "And it's not like he was going to say anything useful. All he was going to say was 'There's nothing you can do to stop it.' Standard villain dialogue cliché. It's so predictable it hurts."

Spider-Man shrugged his shoulders. He then lifted Croc up and encased him in webbing, before swinging over to where the police were, and wordlessly handing him over to them.

He then swung back to where I was standing and we both walked towards The Bike with No Name, neither of us saying a word.

When we reached my bike, I turned to him and said, "So, is it okay if I asked what that was about?"

"What do you mean?"

"You suddenly went berserk earlier," I told him. "Mind telling what that was about?"

He put his hand on the back of his head. "I thought he was gonna kill you, BG," he said sheepishly. "That's all."

"Bee-gee?" I asked.

"Yeah, I was thinking of a nickname for you," he said. "Since, you know, I can't call you by your real name while in costume, and calling you Batgirl all the time sounds too… 'formal', I guess? Or maybe 'professional' is the word I'm looking for. Anyway, it doesn't sound casual."

With that he successfully dodged my question.

I didn't mind, though. It was clear that something triggered the way he retaliated against Killer Croc. I mean, part of it was the fact that I looked like I was about to get sliced into ribbons, of course, but that was only part of it, I think. Even if he was the kind of guy who'd rush to help someone in need, the way he savaged Croc just to save me couldn't be justified by that.

There was another reason why he acted the way he did. The girl whose name he mentioned, most likely—Gwen, was it? But it wasn't my place to pry. We barely knew each other, after all. There was a whole other side to Spider-Man that I had no idea about, but that was understandable. I'm sure we'll get to know each other more soon enough.

And when we get to know about each other more, maybe I can ask him then. For the rest of tonight, however, I was going to take it easy. We've already done so much, and it was only our first night.

"BG sounds forced," I said, following his lead. Besides, I enjoy this side of him way more.

"How about the 'The Purple Knight' then," he joked. "Too subtle?"

"I think the mouthiness of that one beats the purpose of using a nickname in the first place," I told him. "Besides, this is eggplant."

"What _about_ eggplants?"

"No, I mean my costume is eggplant," I explained. Somehow, I feel like I've had this exact conversation with everyone about my costumes, but mostly with my Spoiler outfit.

"It's made of eggplants?"

"No, you idiot. Its color is 'eggplant'."

"There's a color called 'eggplant'?"

"Yes," I said triumphantly, "there is, my uninformed, arachnid friend."

"I guess you learn something new every day," he mused, as his face lit up like a lightbulb. "And now I know exactly what I'm gonna call you from now on."

"Huh?"

"I think I'll call you 'Eggplant'."

**End of Chapter 4**


	5. Oracle

**Spiders and Bats: An Arachnid in Gotham**

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**A/N: **Chapter 4 is just the second half of the old Chapter 3 with some rewrites. I split Chapter 3 into two chapters (Chase and promise) because it was too long, if I remember correctly. Anyway, sorry for being gone for so long. Life just kinda, sorta happened. Plus, there's this novel I've spent a lot of my free time writing, so yeah, it took me longer than I should have to finish this chapter. I'll do better next time, sorry.

On a side note, anyone else here playing Final Fantasy Record Keeper and Fate/Grand Order?

* * *

**The Gotham City Clock Tower was situated at the docks by Gotham Bay, making it visible across the river from Uptown Gotham. Ever since she took up the Oracle identity, Barbara Gordon had been using the Tower as a base of operations, most extensively during her stint as leader of the Birds of Prey.**

If I remember my notes correctly, the Clock Tower was built by Wayne Enterprises as part of Gotham City's major expansion in the early 20th century. Considering the company's track record regarding safety standards in building construction, the structure was strong enough to withstand the worst of No Man's Land, making it one of the few buildings in the city to stand tall amid the destruction that devastated the rest of the harbor area.

And then Black Mask blew it up.

Okay, well, more like Babs blew it up to keep Black Mask from getting his hands on the servers and hard drives she had kept deep within its basements, which contain almost all of the data she's amassed as an information broker all these years. And if those ever go into the wrong hands, well, you get the idea.

After that incident, Babs had Bruce build the Clock Tower back from scratch, but instead of housing her equipment inside the Tower again like last time, she had him build a cavern underneath it to better protect against future incidents like that. And that's how the Oraclecave was born.

* * *

**Chapter Five: Oracle**

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**"That's not how it's called, isn't it?" he asked, as we rode the elevator to the basement.**

"No, but if I annoy her enough maybe she'll give in and let me call it that," I told him.

"Huh," he exclaimed, and shrugged. "Well, good luck with that."

I looked at him and smirked.

The elevator we were in was pretty well-lit, and as such, that moment was the first time I've gotten a good look at him. I really couldn't see him that well back at the Batcave considering how dim the lights were in that place, so right then I was trying to get my fill of him.

Come to think of it, that was also the first time I've gotten a good look at his costume under a good light. Admittedly, it was kind of creepy at first—the costume was solid black, aside from the white spider emblem on the front and back, the big, white bug-eyes on his mask, and the patches of white on the back of his hands.

The fact that it wasn't made of normal cloth was pretty obvious, too: for example, you could readily see the segment where the forearm connected seamlessly with the upper arm at the elbow, and it didn't have so much as a stitch. Our outfits are made pretty much the same way, except that the material of his costume is more fabric-like than our body armor.

That is to say that because of the cloth-like material, his costume had the tendency to be very... skintight, as I've noticed, and it hugged his body quite snugly. It reminded me of how clingy Babs' old Batgirl costume was, back when they used something that looked like spandex instead of body armor—or at least I think it was spandex. I've only ever seen her wear it in some old photos in the Batcave by Bruce's desk, so I wasn't sure. Anyway, much like Babs' costume, Spider-Man's outfit seemed painted on, especially with the way it followed the contours of his abs and his pecs, the broadness of his shoulders, and the toned muscles of his arms and legs. In the thick of it, I couldn't help but want to run my fingers down the length of his neck, and across his collarbone, and on his—

"Steph, you're drooling," he said, suddenly. I couldn't even tell how long he'd been looking at me, or how long I've been staring at him like some sort of pervert.

"No, I wasn't," I denied vehemently, and ran my forearm across my mouth, "and I wasn't ogling you."

"Uh, okay?" he mumbled.

_Ha. He bought it._

"And what's with this 'Steph' business?" I asked him, trying to change the subject. "I thought I was 'Eggplant' now."

"I thought you didn't like it," he said.

"What? Of course, I liked it," I told him, and I meant it, too. "I mean, it sounded awkward at first, but now it sounds kind of… cute. Adorable, even."

He smiled then, I think. It's hard to tell with the mask.

"I'm glad you like it then, Eggplant," he said sheepishly, with his hand on the back of his head. He's so cute like that. "By the way, you ever plan on naming your bike?"

"What do you mean?" I asked him. "It does have a name, you know. I call it 'The Bike with No Name'."

"Cute, Eggplant," he said, "but that's not a name."

"What do you propose then, Webhead?"

He looked like he was in deep in thought for a moment. "I'll think of something," he said, finally.

The lights on the panel above us turned green, and the elevator doors opened then as we reached the basement floor. The doors parted slowly, and as they did, I could make out the figure of someone standing just outside the elevator. She was a woman about Spider-Man's height, wearing a purple outfit that bared her stomach, with matching purple gloves, mask, and boots.

_Why's she standing there? _

"Spider-sense tingling," I heard Spider-Man whisper.

All of a sudden, when the gap between the elevator doors were wide enough, the figure sneaked in and grabbed me abruptly by the collar of my costume.

"Traitor," muttered Huntress under her breath, and she tossed me outside the elevator. I hit the floor violently, and my mouth let out a little whimper. As I got my bearings back, I watched as she then pointed her crossbow at Spider-Man and turned her head towards me, crying, "I can't believe we trusted you. I can't believe _he _trusted you, even more than he ever did me. And now you spit on his face by bringing this criminal here to the Clock Tower."

I got back up on my feet, and grabbed a Batarang from my utility belt.

At the time, I couldn't help but think about why Huntress is Batman's so-called 'least favorite daughter' as Babs would put it. And no, it doesn't make me proud that he at least prefers me to her—because if you put it like that, that makes me out to be just a teensy bit more tolerable than a murderous bitch who's not all together right in the head, if you get my meaning.

And frankly, that's just insulting.

"Look, lady," said Spider-Man. "I've no idea what the hell you're talking about, but you can't just go around throwing people around like that."

"Shut up or eat crossbow bolt, punk," she said, and adjusted her aim, pointing her crossbow straight at Spider-Man's head.

Undaunted, Spider-Man walked even closer towards her, and her crossbow was now only an inch from his forehead. "Try me," he dared her.

Huntress smirked. "You think I'm bluffing?" she asked him, and she grinned. "Alright then."

What happened next was too fast for me to follow.

I remember seeing her pull the trigger, and my reaction was to aim my Batarang at her, wanting to stop her before she could kill him in cold blood. I remember thinking that I'd be too late regardless, that Spider-Man would be dead and I couldn't do anything to stop it. What I remember seeing a second later was Huntress pinned to one side of the elevator by Spider-Man, with his fist an inch or two to the side of her head, leaving a very noticeable dent on the steel wall of the elevator.

On the other side of the elevator, a crossbow bolt was lodged firmly onto the wall, as a broken crossbow made of cobalt steel, aluminum, and oak lied in pieces on the ground.

"Fast, aren't you?" she remarked, tonelessly.

"Proportional speed of a spider," he told her. He almost sounded like he was bragging.

"Your girlfriend over there must be so proud," she teased him.

"She's not my girlfriend."

"That's a shame then," she said almost immediately. "Still, that speed—that must be how you were able to kill him. Only someone who could move that fast could."

That was when I walked up to them and stood beside Spider-Man.

"What are you talking about, Huntress? Killed who?" I questioned her loudly. "Also, I'm not his girlfriend."

She looked at us like we were lying through our teeth.

"Killer Croc, who else?" she said remorselessly.

I don't know what kind of expression it was that I made at that moment. I felt shock, disgust, empathy, and disbelief all at the same time. I didn't even really care about Croc, heartless as that might sound, but I really didn't. Yet, just the idea that someone who you've been talking to no more than an hour earlier is dead… the feeling was horrible. I looked at Spider-Man, and he just stood there and stared at her motionlessly, like he didn't comprehend what Huntress just said.

"He's dead?" asked Spider-Man, almost in a whisper.

Huntress then looked at him, like she was gauging his reaction. She then closed her eyes and sighed, before walking away. Before I could call her name, she then looked back at us and asked, "So you didn't kill him?"

"No, I didn't," said Spider-Man, but his tone lacked conviction. It almost sounded as if he actually _did _kill him.

"I guess not," remarked Huntress then, and she began to walk.

I ran after her, and Spider-Man followed closely behind me.

"What the hell was that about?" I asked her, angrily, as soon as I caught up to her. As far as I was concerned, she had a lot of explaining to do.

"Killer Croc was killed tonight as the police were transporting him back to Blackgate," she began to explain, as if she heard my narration. "The killer was clad entirely in black, and was strong enough to tear open the back of the police van Croc was in, and then broke his neck without him being able to amount even a little resistance. The killer was then able to escape the scene without the police being able to so much as make an attempt to apprehend him, meaning either he was too fast and they weren't given the slightest bit of time to react, or the GCPD was just being its inept, unreliable self. I would usually chalk it up to the latter of the two, except that Montoya and Bullock were with the escorts, which makes that possibility less believable."

"So you're saying you thought I did it because of my powers and costume?" asked Spider-Man.

"No," answered Huntress. "I was here when Batman left Oracle a memo deputizing you as a member of the Family, and so in my disbelief that he would do something so brash with someone I've never even heard of, I started reading up on you. You've got a clean profile, and a track record of being accused for crimes like murder, and later being proved innocent. So when Oracle got the report of Croc's murder, despite you being the only active metahuman from outside of Gotham, we knew better than to suspect you. The fact that your outfit looks like the killer's is something I only found out after meeting you just now."

That makes sense, since this isn't Spider-Man's usual color scheme.

"Then why accuse him anyway?" I questioned her.

"Call it standard procedure," she explained. "Besides, I wanted to see what he'd do, just to erase the tiny bit of doubt that might still be lurking in the back of my mind. I thought for sure that he'd make a move when I pointed my crossbow at his head, but he just dodged my shot and pushed me back without hurting me. I underestimated him."

"That makes sense, I guess," said Spider-Man. "But why attack her?"

"Oh, I can answer that one," I remarked. "It's because she downright hates my guts."

"Please, Stephanie, you're overestimating how much I care about you," she replied. "Hating you would imply I feel _something _regarding you, instead of the complete and utter apathy I feel about you and your entire person."

"Is that so? Tell me, Helena: that bit earlier about Batman trusting me more than he ever trusted you, were those just empty words, or were they the voice of the attention-seeking, little girl inside you crying out for her daddy-figure to _notice_ her?"

"You're one to talk about fathers, Stephanie. Which one of us has a father that's served time at Ryker's and Blackgate, again?"

"Maybe yours would have spent just as much time if you didn't kill him, Helena."

Low blow, I know, but I was just so pissed off at her. And besides—

"Is that so, Miss 'My-dad-is-a-Riddler-knock-off'?"

—she didn't even blink at the statement, and just started calling me names.

_Well, two can play at that game, _I thought.

"It _is _so, Miss 'My-dad-was-a-Godfather-wannabe'."

"Tch. Villain spawn."

"Mafia princess."

"Oh, you take that back, you blonde bimbo!"

"Touched a nerve? Look who's talking, Helena-sleeps-around!"

"Girls."

A voice that dripped with disappointment and disbelief echoed through our ears as Babs suddenly appeared right in front of us, leaning back on her wheelchair, and with her arms crossed over her very ample chest and no I wasn't looking at them or anything they were just suddenly there and I just happened to look at them and I wasn't staring because I was jealous or anything about how big her chest is compared to mine and now I'm just mumbling incoherently I'm so sorry—

Gah. Why are my hormones going haywire tonight?

"Why are you two bickering?" she asked us sternly.

Before I knew it, we were both pointing at each other, shouting "She started it!"

"Children. You two are children. I am dealing with two, little girls right now," she remarked, tiredly. She then wheeled between us towards Spider-Man, who was standing behind us. "Sorry you had to see that."

"It's fine, really, I think," he said, sheepishly, with his hand on the back of his head.

Babs then reached her hand out towards him and he took it.

"Barbara Gordon," she introduced herself. "Oracle. But you can call me 'Babs' if you like."

"Peter Parker," he then introduced himself, after pulling off his mask with his free hand. "Spider-Man. Most people just call me 'Peter' though."

"Huh. You're pretty cute," Babs remarked, and Peter blushed. "I was not expecting that."

"Lady, that makes two of us," said Peter. "I was told you were easy on the eyes, but that word underestimates things by a lot."

_Crap. Are they flirting?_

"And who was it that told you that, Petey?" asked Babs.

_They _are _flirting. Oh, no, you don't. I'm putting a stop to this._

"Eggplant did," said Peter.

"Eggplant?" asked Babs, curiously.

She then turned towards me, and I gave her a look that said 'Hands off' or the closest thing to that. She then gave me a look that said 'Eggplant, huh?', and I replied with 'Yeah, yeah'. Then afterwards she giggled, and gave me a shrug, saying 'Then he's all yours'.

At least, that's how I think that conversation went.

"Peter," I called his attention. "Wasn't there something you wanted to ask Babs?"

It looked as if he only just remembered why we went there in the first place. There was a very serious look on his face, which I can now see for certain with his mask off and all, as he asked, "Can you tell me why Croc was killed?"

I was surprised. "What about Osborn?" I asked him. "He's the reason why you even went to Gotham in the first place, right?"

"True, but this takes precedence," he said. "We were the ones who apprehended Croc, so in a way we had some responsibility over him."

"But—"

"Besides, remember what he told us when we beat him?"

"He said that 'something was coming'. Ominous stuff, yeah, but it's not like you don't hear those kinds of clichéd lines all the time from these villains. Seriously, it's like they get all their ideas from comic books or something."

"Except Croc doesn't strike me as the idea generating-type," he remarked, and crossed his arms.

"Well, you're right about that," Babs cut in, and she began to move away. Peter, Huntress, and I followed her as she made her way to the main room. "Despite his abilities—or perhaps, _because_ of them—Croc is just a King Mook at best that works for more enterprising schemers like the Joker and Black Mask. Meaning somebody else is pulling the strings, and Jones just happened to get caught up in them. Maybe he was even working for them until he realized what a dangerous position that placed him in."

"And that someone was the one that ordered the hit on Croc to keep him from spilling what he knew, seeing as he was in police custody," surmised Huntress. "Plus, they had the killer dress like you in order to frame you for the crime. Is that what you're getting at, Spider-Man?"

"Exactly," confirmed Peter. "Well, except that last part. It didn't cross my mind that they deliberately went out of their way to frame me. So will the police start looking for me now?"

"No, they won't," said Babs, as we reached the door to the main room. "I've scrambled their network so the video feeds from street cameras of your impostor committing the crime won't reach police records. We have the only copy of the video available."

It was a tall door about ten feet high, four feet wide, and half a foot thick, made of adamantium laced with Nth metal. The Nth metal was to ward off ghosts and spirits, or so I was told. Which begs the question of why a ghost would bother to pass through the doors instead of, you know, the walls. Though I wouldn't put it past Batman to have the walls, floor, and ceiling of the main room be made out of Nth metal-laced adamantium. He certainly has the money for that kind of undertaking.

"Thanks for that, Barbara," said Peter, and he smiled warmly at her. "I don't want to say that I'm used to all the bad publicity back in New York—because that would be depressing—so managing to barely avoid that sort of hate in Gotham feels great. I appreciate it."

"Don't mention it," said Babs, and smiled back at him. "And really, just call me 'Babs'."

"Will do then, Babs."

She then looked at me and winked, like she was saying 'Can't help it'. So I just scowled at her until she said 'Sorry' with her eyes. But she didn't.

Babs then punched the unlock code onto the keypad beside the door, and a small green light on the keypad lighted up as the door began to open. We stepped inside, and I stretched my arms as the temptation of sleep started to take me.

It was way past midnight, after all.

Anyway, on the other side of the door was the main room where all of Babs' hacker stuff was. The place was very spacious, a little bigger than a high school auditorium even, but it was almost virtually empty and was very minimalist in design. There were several doors in there that led to server rooms, while one of them led to a bathroom.

Near the main door was a small coffee table surrounded by three red sofas, one of the only splashes of color in a dominantly white room. There were some gym equipment to one side, and a couple of bookshelves next to those were stacked end to end with books on a multitude of subjects. I tried reading a few one time, but rather than anything literary, they were mostly academic and technical journals that made my head hurt when I tried to sift through them. Then when I accidentally dropped this huge medical journal, my foot began to hurt, too. So I stopped trying to read through Babs' books, if only for my own good.

The only other notable thing about the room was the computer at the front with a huge monitor flanked by several normal-sized monitors on each side, not unlike the one in the Batcave. We followed Babs as she moved towards it, and when she did she began booting up her computer. And as she did that, she then turned around towards the three of us, and leaned back on her wheelchair.

"So, let's get down to business," she declared purposefully, and turned to Peter. "Petey, you're here for Norman Osborn, correct?"

"Right, but like I said, that can wait. The case with Croc seems more urgen—"

"No, I've already tasked Huntress with that," said Babs, and she looked in Huntress' direction. "You'll take care of it, won't you, Helena?"

"Right," confirmed Huntress, and she strode away abruptly. We watched as she walked towards the back of the room, but before going out the door, she turned towards me, and said, "You owe me a crossbow."

"Was that her way of saying goodbye?" I asked aloud.

"No, I think you literally just owe her a crossbow," said Peter, while skirting over the fact that he was the one who broke it.

"Anyway, what about what Croc said?" I asked Babs.

"You can tell me more about that later," said Babs. "But from what I can gather he never said anything concrete aside from 'something is coming', huh?"

"No, I guess not."

"Then we can leave that on the back burner for now and Huntress investigate it," Bab concluded. "Meanwhile, this ordeal with Norman Osborn is a more pressing issue. Peter, Bruce sent me a transcript of your meeting with him earlier today—or since it's two past midnight, yesterday—with Tony Stark of Stark Industries. Though Mr. Stark tried to hide the topic behind the guise of a potential business proposal between Stark Industries and Wayne Enterprises, it was quite apparent from your conversation that the two of you were more concerned with questioning Bruce about a joint venture between OsCorp and Wayne Enterprises."

"That's right," confirmed Peter, "though Bruce Wayne denied knowing anything about a deal existing between his company and Osborn's."

"Which is why Bruce had me check the records for any anomalies. You know, paper trails and stuff like that."

Babs then fiddled with her computer, and brought up a few documents onto the screen.

"I'm assuming you found something?"

"Then you assumed right. There seems to a have been a shipment of WayneTech equipment that went right under our noses to an unknown location. Among the myriad of lab equipment delivered by the truckload from Wayne Enterprises' R&amp;D department seems to be a set of experimental gene splicers."

Images of the WayneTech gene splicers then showed up onscreen, and you'd be hard-pressed to believe that they weren't some sort of prop in the lair of a mad scientist in a movie.

"That would make sense. Osborn is a biochemist, and from what I gathered from my sources back in NYC, I have reason to assume that he's delving into making biochemical weapons for some insane, unknown purpose. But what bugs me is how were they able to smuggle a large number of equipment out of Wayne Enterprises without the head honcho knowing about it?"

"That isn't hard to do," said Babs, and brought up the image of a man onto the center of the screen. "Any high-ranking member of the board can perform duties like that without any need for Bruce's approval. Wayne Enterprises has so many divisions that keeping track of every decision-making responsibility is a tall order even for someone like Bruce Wayne. What's surprising though is that this man, Philip Kane, is Bruce's uncle, and one of the last people you'd expect to make under-the-table dealings."

"So," I said as I began to put in my two cents, "either he's not as clean as he lets on or—"

"—or he's being brainwashed, hypnotized, blackmailed, replaced by a shapeshifter, replaced by a clone, or what have you," continued Babs.

"Christ, I hate clones," Spider-Man muttered to himself quite audibly. "So you want me and Eggplant to find out what his deal is?"

I could hear Babs trying to muffle a giggle while whispering "Eggplant" under her breath.

_Ah, whatever, as long I think it's cute._

"No, I'll have Dick do it once he's done with work at Bludhaven," explained Babs. "As the oldest of Bruce's adopted sons, he can get close to Philip Kane without inciting suspicion. Neither of you can do that in your civvies, and if you do it in costume and get exposed, well, that'll just complicate things. I'd rather not have Batgirl and Spider-Man be accused of threatening a senior member of Wayne Enterprises."

Let me just take this moment to remark on how well Babs has thought this through. Like seriously, there's a very good reason why she's the most favorite daughter.

"Besides, you're needed at Gotham University tomorrow, right?" she asked Peter.

"Right, I'm due to give a lecture as part of my cov—wait, how did you know that?" he questioned her in his surprise.

As I turned to look at her reaction, I saw that Babs was smiling like a mischievous, little kid. It was quite jarring to see that kind of playful face on her.

"I kinda, sorta hacked into Tony Stark's tablet while it was connected to Wayne Tower's Wi-Fi when you guys were there, and I saw the schedule he made for your cover story."

Peter looked perplexed. "Wait, did you just say you _hacked_ Tony Stark?"

"Yeah, but I only got so far as to breach his firewalls and read a few files before I got kicked out," Babs explained sheepishly. "Luckily, my network is too heavily encrypted for him to trace me back here, so all is good."

"That's… pretty amazing, regardless," complimented Peter. "The first time I hacked him, I had to program an override to bypass his security network so I'd remain undetected. Although instead of his tablet, I was hacking into his armor, but still…"

"Well, that's more impressive than I did," replied Babs. "Though I really just wanted to see how deep I could get into his software before his security kicked me out. If I wanted to, I'm pretty sure I could've written an override like you did, and download the contents of his tablet for kicks, er, trophies. Trophies, like, just to show I can."

"You know, I don't doubt that for second."

"I know for a fact you don't."

_Crap. Their flirting again, and I can't even butt in because I don't know what they're talking about._

"Well, it's been a long night, we should really be going," I cut in, and yawned for added effect. "Especially since there's still school tomorrow, and you know, college student here."

"Yeah, it _is _pretty late. I should go home, too," agreed Babs, as she checked the time on her computer's desktop. She then turned towards Peter and asked, "Maybe you'd like to have some coffee at my apartment for a while? With Tim always gone, it's been a long time since I've talked about programming with anyone."

"Programming's more of a hobby of mine actually, so I don't know how good a conversation we can have about it, but sure, I'd love to—"

"Actually, he can't since I've already invited him to have some cake at my place," I told her, in the most unconvincing manner possible.

"You did?" asked Peter, genuinely confused.

"Yeah, on the bike ride here. You don't remember? That wasn't even a half hour ago."

"I think I remember it… vaguely?"

_Ha. He bought it._

"Huh. Is that so?" asked Babs, and she smiled at me knowingly. "That's too bad then. Maybe we can have coffee some other time, Peter."

"We can always do it tomorrow—or actually, later—at school, Babs," I told her. "With all three of us."

"I suppose we can," she agreed readily. When Babs decides to take a hint, she's actually pretty good at playing the wingman, at least as far as I've noticed. "Drop by my office at lunch then."

"Will do," I said, and pulled Peter by the arm.

He then turned around as we made our way towards the main door, and said, "It was nice meeting you, Babs."

"It was nice meeting you too, Spider-Man," said Babs, waving at us. "I look forward to working with you."

We went out the door together, and they shut closed behind us.

**End of Chapter 5**


End file.
